I bought a bald cypress yesterday from the monastery in Conyers Ga. It has good shape to it. Ill upload a picture soon. It is in a small plastic pot that is cracking. Is now a bad time to repot bc i doubt the pot will last much longer. I have a nice training pot i can put it in that will allow more room to grow. If reporting is okay now, what mix should i use? I have perlite, decomposed pine barks and potting soil. Would a mix of that be acceptable? Once i upload the picture of it feel free to suggest which branches to keep and remove and any suggested directions to go with it.Thanks for any input.Kurt

I'd skip the perlite. Try to find some Turface (or clones) instead. But repotting -- especially in a large pot and not messing with roots now -- will be fine.

_________________Jim Lewis - lewisjk@windstream.net - Western NC - People, when Columbus discovered this country, it was plumb full of nuts and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just about all gone. Uncle Dave Macon, old-time country musician

Thanks for the suggestions. The roots were very bound in the small pot but it had many feeder roots. I loosened up the ball but I think it sits far too high in the pot, one if the top roots is really high and the soil washes away very easily. I have the pot in water half way up the side. When is the best time to do extensive root work on this to get it lower in the pot? Ill have pics up tomorrow

Not-too-early spring in your area. You can be fairly brutal with their roots when the time comes.

Maybe you should put it in a larger pot?????????

_________________Jim Lewis - lewisjk@windstream.net - Western NC - People, when Columbus discovered this country, it was plumb full of nuts and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just about all gone. Uncle Dave Macon, old-time country musician

I know a couple guys in south carolina that have their best success collecting cypress from the wild in june and july. They trunk chop and obviously root chop at that time to collect them, and if they do it any earlier in the year they notice their % of survival decreases quite a bit. I would not recommend that for anything else unless it is a tropical species. Submerging the tree and pot in water does seem to trigger flaring and fluting on the trunk. I placed some of my cypress pots in cattle troughs filled with water this summer and it worked well.

Mid-January I moved down to sunny Florida and I brought the plants I could with me. My ficus and my baldy. After the repot, I trimmed it up and did an initial style. This first picture is from the day I bought the cypress, right before Christmas.

After getting adjusted and watering making sure it's sopping wet, it seems to enjoy the new atmosphere. Just this weekend, it started popping buds all over. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a full pic of it but here are the buds on the first branch.

Once I get back to my condo, I'll get some proper pictures of it. I like how mine is budding like crazy when all of the local ones in the area are still brown and haven't started budding. Just goes to show what happens when you change the environment.

This next weekend I'm planning on doing some substantial root pruning. Or would this be ill advised?

Bald cypress are like weeds. Give them plenty of light and plenty of water and they can recover from just about anything. I collected a wild one about this time last year. I'm farther north than you but re-potting shouldn't be a hurdle you have to worry about. I think you will surprised how much growth you will get in the next few months.

They also backbud on the trunk like crazy so don't be hesitant to whack off a branch if it's not where you like it.

kmeng wrote:Mid-January I moved down to sunny Florida and I brought the plants I could with me. My ficus and my baldy. After the repot, I trimmed it up and did an initial style. This first picture is from the day I bought the cypress, right before Christmas.

After getting adjusted and watering making sure it's sopping wet, it seems to enjoy the new atmosphere. Just this weekend, it started popping buds all over. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a full pic of it but here are the buds on the first branch.

Once I get back to my condo, I'll get some proper pictures of it. I like how mine is budding like crazy when all of the local ones in the area are still brown and haven't started budding. Just goes to show what happens when you change the environment.

This next weekend I'm planning on doing some substantial root pruning. Or would this be ill advised?

Thanks,Kurt

You can do just about anything you want right now to your cypress. Spring is coming early this year, at least in the South. I have bald cypress budding out (they tend to have "memory," so the ones I collected farther south than me are budding while the ones I collected farther north haven't yet).

You need to decide if you want the tree to be about the size it is now, meaning trunk thickness, or if you want it to be bigger. If you're happy with the trunk size, then you can cut back the roots and the apex and repot in good-draining soil. It'll do its thing this year and you can set the branches you want. Bald cypress is apically dominant, so you'll have to control the growth during the season. Now, if you want the tree to be bigger then you'll have to pot into a much larger container, maybe a concrete mixing tub, or better still the ground. Then you'll have to wait a few years at least. Don't expect fluting of the trunk for quite some time, if that's one of your goals.